Trump debuted a new affordability script. It’s unclear to advisers whether he’ll stick to it
By Adam Cancryn, CNN
(CNN) — The White House is heading into a critical midterm year beset by economic challenges, as it tries to manage stubbornly high prices, a frustrated electorate and a commander-in-chief who struggles to show sympathy toward voters’ pain.
For one night, at least, officials addressed one issue: getting President Donald Trump to stay on a scripted message — in-part about affordability — in an 18-minute primetime address to the nation.
The question as he heads to another campaign-style rally on Friday: Can they convince him to do it again? And will any of it change his party’s increasingly dire political fortunes?
Some Trump advisers on Thursday cheered the decision to put the president in front of a primetime audience, crediting the official setting and tight time constraints for producing the more focused economic speech they badly needed him to deliver.
Trump during the address acknowledged Americans’ affordability concerns while blaming his predecessor for the cost-of-living “mess.” He highlighted specific signs of progress, like lower gas and egg prices, while vowing brighter days were still ahead.
And while far from perfect — Trump sped through the speech, abruptly switching topics and sometimes taking an angry tone — he avoided the digressions and off-the-cuff claims of an affordability “hoax” that had until now drowned out the economic message his aides are desperate for voters to hear.
“It was good,” said one Trump adviser. “And one of the reasons why it was good was because he was more on the script than he is otherwise with these things.”
But others in the GOP feared it won’t much matter in the long run.
“The president can’t happy talk his way out of what people feel,” said one GOP operative advising on a range of midterm races. “The White House staff around the president know what the message needs to be, and I wish that the president would listen.”
Trump’s rally in North Carolina Friday is likely to be far more freewheeling. As the president ramps up his travel, allies and advisers conceded it could be a challenge to figure out how to convince Trump to hew closely to the script.
Wednesday’s hastily organized primetime event underscored the urgency within the Trump administration to find fresh ways to combat the affordability concerns that are dominating voters’ attention — but that the president has been slow to similarly adopt as top of mind.
Trump’s approval ratings are mired at some of the lowest levels of his second term, driven by voters’ unhappiness with his handling of the economy and belief that their own financial progress has stalled.
That affordability backlash has already manifested in a series of state and city-wide electoral losses for Republicans, alarming GOP lawmakers and operatives who warn the party is on course for disaster in next year’s midterms. It’s a situation only likely to worsen come January, after Congress failed to avert a spike in health care premiums tied to the Affordable Care Act.
A new affordability script
Within Trump’s orbit, advisers have sought to revamp the administration’s messaging and demonstrate its focus on cost-of-living issues, amplifying its rhetoric on key pain points like groceries, energy costs, and pharmaceutical pricing.
But Trump has resisted the push to show more empathy, insisting that the economy remains strong and bristling at suggestions that his policies are contributing to Americans’ affordability anxieties. He’s also groused in public and private about the lack of attention being paid to other key priorities like immigration, complaining that his efforts to seal the southern border haven’t won him as much political credit as he deserves.
During a winding speech last week in Pennsylvania meant to kick of a series of economy-focused domestic trips, Trump only occasionally read from his prepared remarks, preferring instead to hold court on a wide range of topics far from voters’ core concerns.
The president’s Friday rally is likely to feature more of the same, with Trump telling reporters ahead of time he planned to talk about immigration and his deployment of the National Guard to various cities in addition to touting his economic accomplishments.
“I mean, we’ve had tremendous success,” he said from the Oval Office on Thursday, claiming that after deploying Guard troops throughout Washington, DC, “people walk to work and they thank me all the time.”
Trump allies and advisers acknowledged there’s little expectation the president will suddenly break character and overhaul his approach to those speeches, with some arguing that much of his unique appeal is grounded in the ability to feed off his audience and a willingness to talk about almost anything on the stump.
Still, they’ve been encouraged by Trump’s adoption of elements of a new economic frame, including portraying the economy as a work in progress that he’s trying to fix and talking up the GOP tax policies set to kick in next year.
“He’s moving in the right direction,” said former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who remains close to the White House. “Once he starts rolling, he’ll get his head around this.”
The national address on Wednesday, though, offered an opportunity to get Trump to zoom in on the economic message more tightly, and in front of a wider audience that advisers hoped would see the president as focused on their top concerns.
Buoyed on Thursday by new data showing inflation cooling faster than anticipated, the White House launched a media blitz backed by repackaged clips of Trump’s speech aimed at taking advantage of what many saw as one of the more optimistic days for the administration’s economic agenda in a while.
Still, White House officials are hunting for ways to turn the momentary bright spot into the kind of sustained campaign needed to fend off the economic headwinds awaiting them in 2026.
Health care and housing concerns
Aides are troubled in particular by the GOP’s inability to coalesce behind a health care plan ahead of a jump in Affordable Care Act premiums early next year, people familiar with the dynamics said.
The issue has stymied officials within the White House, leaving the administration without a viable plan to follow through on Trump’s vague mandate to give “money to the people,” rather than insurance companies,— and prompting fears that Republicans will have little defense against a barrage of Democratic attacks on health care costs.
Pressed on the issue on Thursday, Trump acknowledged that premiums were set to “skyrocket” but declined to offer any path to a solution. In a sign of the messaging conundrum, his Medicare and Medicaid chief Dr. Mehmet Oz then jumped in to downplay the premiums hikes and tout ACA plans as a “good deal.”
The White House has devoted increasing effort to exploring ideas for alleviating the nation’s housing crunch as well, amid concerns that rising home prices and rents are driving much of Americans’ economic dissatisfaction.
Trump on Wednesday previewed an “aggressive” effort to make housing more affordable, without offering details. Aides have privately discussed finding levers to drive mortgage rates into the 4% range, viewing it as the threshold they need to hit to juice the housing market, as well as measures to encourage more homebuilding.
White House officials in the meantime are pushing for Trump to be on the road nearly every week next year, believing it’s critical for voters to see and hear far more from the president in hopes they’ll be assured he’s refocused on the economy. Those appearances may not be as disciplined or efficient as it was on Wednesday, advisers said, but they’re still crucial to showing that the administration is trying to make headway on affordability.
“They’re trying to keep him focused, and they’re trying to get back on message,” the Trump adviser said. “It’s going to take some time to turn things around. … But we’ve got to get the advantage back on affordability issues.”
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